The Artist–in–Residence Program

The application period for the 2015-2016 Artist in Residence Program residency program is now closed.

The Artist in Residence Program is available to all visual artists in any medium. All visual artists (sculptors, installation artists, painters, environmental artists, sound, video, performance artists) can apply this fall for 2015. Applicants may be emerging or established artists on a regional, national or international level. Bernheim will provide a stipend of $2,500.00 USD and living quarters for the recipient. In exchange, they will create a site-specific sculpture or project or exhibition, with at least one mutually agreed to work of art left to the Bernheim Foundation.

The goal in all of Bernheim’s activities is to help realize its mission of strengthening the bond between people and nature by finding new ways to connect nature with people’s everyday lives. We believe that if people recognize and benefit from the many values found in nature, quality of life would be enhanced, hence motivating them to protect the natural world for both its practical and intrinsic value. The Bernheim Artist in Residence is awarded on an annual basis to a talented artist who will work within the forest and/or arboretum to create works that are inspired by and potentially installed in the natural world. The Residence provides the artist an opportunity to advance her or his own skills and career while enhancing awareness of Bernheim’s goals and mission regionally, nationally and internationally. Please explore our website more information about Bernheim.

The recipient is required to live and work at Bernheim for a minimum of two months and up to four months. Bernheim will provide comfortable housing in a one-room cabin with kitchen, AC, heating, Wi-Fi, a log-burning fireplace accessible from outside the arboretum in a beautiful wooded setting. There is a lakeside studio that is heated, has electricity, concrete floors, a utility sink, and a large, well-lit wall. The selected artist will be given access to Bernheim’s grounds and some limited support by operations and horticulture staff, if required. Material support is not available although natural materials are available such as fallen trees and plant material.

Art materials, travel and other expenses are not included. There is a car available for limited use if a current US or International Driver’s License is presented. Recipients will also be asked to interact with the staff and public in some way, which may include but not limited to participating in the development or the making of the work, supporting ongoing staff-initiated projects, public workshops and/or lectures. Bernheim and the recipient will reach an agreement together regarding the work to be donated and the proposed public interaction.

Recent artists include Mei-ling Hom, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Sévyrna Lupien from Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, Firat Erdim who is from Izmir, Turkey and teaches architecture in Segovia, Spain and lastly Myung Gyun You, who is from South Korea and currently lives in Philadelphia.

Mei-ling Hom arrived at Bernheim for two months the fall of 2013 and returned for two months in the spring of 2014 in order to create a sculptural landscape of inoculated straw sculptures. These pieces use mushroom mycelia as examples of the possibilities that mycorestoration offer depleted soils and polluted waters. Mei-ling uses mycorestoration methods utilizing local natural materials (straw and wood chips) to create an artistic landscape, which will be both inspiring in its remediation properties, and in its visual beauty. The artist integrates proven mycorrhizal solutions with design elegance and visual wonder in order to engage the Bernheim audience in a respectful and joyful appreciation of the natural landscape. The piece is titled Rhizolink, and is located in the Edible Garden. A line of coiled shaped straw forms were made to replicate Morse code. The forms were inoculated with mycelia and planted with chives and oregano. Enhancing the quality of soil Rhizolink also engages viewers to learn the meaning of the Morse code message, and connect deeply with nature.

Mei-ling Hom holds a M.F.A. from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and a B.A. from Kirkland College, Clinton, New York. She has been awarded grants and fellowships from the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, Fulbright Fellowship for Visual Arts Research in South Korea, The Joan Mitchell Foundation – Visual Arts Grant, the Pritzker Foundation Endowed Fellowship and The Leeway Foundation. She shows internationally and has major commissioned pieces at the international airports in Philadelphia and Raleigh Durham, North Carolina.

Sévyrna Lupien lived at Bernheim from early April 2014 through the end of May 2014. A Quebec artist, she has recently installed The Atomic Apartment on the outside of the Visitor Center windows with some installation assistance from Bernheim’s diligent operations and horticulture staff. This mid-century modern style cloud form is constructed of various widths and lengths of PVC piping. Beyond its aesthetic appeal, it forms an ideal setting for mason bees who unlike honey bees (Apis) or bumblebees, Osmia are solitary; every female is fertile and makes her own nest, and there are no worker bees for these species. The Atomic Apartment can be viewed from both inside and outside building, allowing visitors to observe the mason bees making their nests. Solitary bees produce neither honey nor beeswax and will only sting if squeezed or stepped on. As such, they are beneficial and benign, since they both pollinate plants and are safe for children and pets.

Firat Erdim worked and resided at Bernheim from approximately August 1st thrhough September 30th, 2014. Pieces of salvaged timber have been the artist’s primary material while architectural construction is a primary reference. Erdim is interested in learning from the Bernheim staff about the rituals of care and maintenance that take place within Bernheim’s arboretum and research forest. During his residency the artist created a series of drawings, and a large outdoor installation, Island, that utilized the research forest as his primary spacial orientation.

Firat Erdim received his MA in Architecture from the University of Virginia in 2007 and his BA in Architecture in 2001 from The Cooper Union. He has shown his work in numerous galleries and museums through out Turkey and in Chicago, San Francisco and Charlottesville in the United States. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Undergraduate Program in Architecture at IE University, in Segovia, Spain. He recently won the highly acclaimed Prix de Rome in Architecture and he and Olivia will spending six months in Rome starting in January of 2015.

Myung Gyun You resided at Bernheim from August and September of 2014. He created a large outdoor sculpture titled Photosynthesis at the Artist Studio on the shore of Lake Nevin.The artist is known for his enormous, organic installation works, which he states, “explore the relationship between natural order and human society.” He contemplates the notion that everything can be reduced to science: to a molecular and cellular level while simultaneously coexisting in the vastness of the universe. By creating a piece of this scale the viewer is drawn to its sheer physicality, the beauty of its form and construction, and its relationship to its natural surroundings.